Motorail

[BernardTPM]

A picture at the top of page 4 has the TOPS code NVV, so vacuum braked only. TCV is not a TOPS code, of course, despite looking a bit like one (much like the old SPV ex- Insulfish vans).

Edited August 25, 2021 by BernardTPM

['CHARD]

On 23/08/2021 at 19:24, montyburns56 said:

A great picture for livery reference...

 

Perth 1967 by George Woods

 

 

 

Looking forward to Heljan's release of these in OO, fabulous!!!

[montyburns56]

On 15/07/2021 at 20:07, montyburns56 said:

A nice set of pictures which might  inspire someone to produce a model of the TCV Newton Chambers Car Carriers. Pretty please....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Jamerail

 

So I'm taking the credit for the Heljan model. You can all thank me at your leisure....   😉

[Enterprisingwestern]

47 minutes ago, montyburns56 said:

 

So I'm taking the credit for the Heljan model. You can all thank me at your leisure....   😉

 

I think you'll find Mr Bullock beat you to it on page 3!

 

Mike.

[montyburns56]

Motorail GUVs at Euston 1995 by Nic Joynson

 

[montyburns56]

I've found that pictures of the Motorail GUVs in blue grey are surprisingly rare so...

 

NXA E96130 at Ferme Park sidings on 5 March 1988 by Michael J Collins

 

 

[Flood]

5 hours ago, montyburns56 said:

I've found that pictures of the Motorail GUVs in blue grey are surprisingly rare so...

 

Not totally surprising, a considerable number went from plain blue to Swallow.

The problem is that the Platform 5 books don't show the liveries correctly. For March 1988 there were 50 Motorail GUVs (either renumbered as 96xxx or allocated that series) of which, from checking the Ian Allan combined and photos, 31 were still plain blue, 17 were blue and grey and 2 were in InterCity Executive.

From late 1988 all Motorail GUVs started to be painted in Swallow.

It is not helped that the vast majority of photos on Flickr seem to be from 1991 onwards.

[GordonC]

9 hours ago, Flood said:

Not totally surprising, a considerable number went from plain blue to Swallow.

The problem is that the Platform 5 books don't show the liveries correctly. For March 1988 there were 50 Motorail GUVs (either renumbered as 96xxx or allocated that series) of which, from checking the Ian Allan combined and photos, 31 were still plain blue, 17 were blue and grey and 2 were in InterCity Executive.

From late 1988 all Motorail GUVs started to be painted in Swallow.

It is not helped that the vast majority of photos on Flickr seem to be from 1991 onwards.

 

Was there any difference in how Intercity Executive and Swallow were applied to motorail GUVs? They were never lettered with INTERCITY like the passenger carrying coaches

[keefer]

I'm sure I've seen a photo where INTERCITY  was painted on one of the wooden boards.

[25kV]

27 minutes ago, keefer said:

I'm sure I've seen a photo where INTERCITY  was painted on one of the wooden boards.

 

That feels familiar.

There's a photo in Parkin's Mk1 book which has "Motorail" in italic INTERCITY-style font on the chalkboards - the photo is too small to get a good look. 

Ah - wait - Flickr is our friend: https://www.flickr.com/photos/r-t-c/19437413962/  (and a couple more searching on "Intercity GUV Motorail").

 

[keefer]

1 hour ago, 25kV said:

 

That feels familiar.

There's a photo in Parkin's Mk1 book which has "Motorail" in italic INTERCITY-style font on the chalkboards - the photo is too small to get a good look. 

Ah - wait - Flickr is our friend: https://www.flickr.com/photos/r-t-c/19437413962/  (and a couple more searching on "Intercity GUV Motorail").

 

Unless that's what I was thinking of - I can't be sure, was a few years ago!

Good spot on the Motorail though.

[Chris M]

Back on page 3 in 2020 I had decided I couldn’t really do a Motorail train. Well this year I changed my mind. I do N gauge and there were no Motorail carflats available so I had to do it the hard way and repaint/rebrand some Railease carflats. I ran these in a 5+5 set at Farnham last weekend and they raised a good deal of interest.  At Warley NEC I will be running 5 coaches plus 6 carflats. Ok it’s still not right but it makes an impressively long and different train.

 

Although I see this train as a late 1960s train I reckon it would also work well as a 1980s train with just the Motorail carflats and no coaches hauled by a 50.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Chris M

[big jim]

Bit of a bump for this topic but I’ve just found this little beauty hidden away in a closed booking office/waiting room, using your original gallery I can see it’s from 1968 going by the identical illustration and phrase 

 

unfortunately someone has had a go at removing it or it’s just plain old but the bottom part is practically missing but there appears to be a track plan, im wondering is it possibly Holyhead as you can see 2 lines with onward arrows which in my head correspond with the platforms (2+3) under the canopy that had car ramps right before the old ferry terminal

 

ive done a google search and can’t find any pics of this illustration as a poster 

[montyburns56]

Last night I was watching this Youtube video from Crewe in 1988 and at one point there is a Motorail train using Carflats, but what I found most interesting was that there were some MK1 coaches in Executive livery that were branded Intercity Motorail. I've never seen or heard of such things before. Does anyone know anything about them?

 

 

[keefer]

Mk1 FKs I think and there was at least one Mk2 or 2a BFK for use in the trains. (Haven't had time to watch the video).

DaveF's photo thread has featured Motorail stock a couple of times, IIRC pics taken at Carlisle.

Edited September 1 by keefer

[Dalesman]

55 minutes ago, montyburns56 said:

Last night I was watching this Youtube video from Crewe in 1988 and at one point there is a Motorail train using Carflats, but what I found most interesting was that there were some MK1 coaches in Executive livery that were branded Intercity Motorail. I've never seen or heard of such things before. Does anyone know anything about them?

 

 

 As luck would have it, I'm just typing up my spotting notes from Wednesday May 27th 1987 at Crewe. The formation was fairly normal with the Mk1 FKs having a reupholstered interior. From IIRC 1989 saw the use of enclosed 961xx series GUVs instead of the open ex-coach Underframe style vehicles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 1 by Dalesman
duplicated list.

[Steven B]

It's interesting to see that the camper van loaded on the train has its pop-up roof strapped down! It also looks like you can also see where the train was split for loading with empty car spaces on the third carflat.

 

In 1987 the Euston-Stirling formation was booked as Mk2 BFK, 6x Mk1 FK and 11 Carflat (FGV). One compartment was allocated per car. Class 85 were common on the run along the WCML.

 

The BFK would occasionally be swapped with a Mk1 BSK or BCK; Rail Express Modeller shows the formation with a NSE liveried BSK, one of the pictures below has a blue/grey BCK. Occasionally a Motorail GUV could be found amongst the carflats.

 

Some nice images on Flickr:

Roarin' through Atherstone. by John Whitehouse, on Flickr

 

85004 at Greenholme by mark_jobling, on Flickr

 

37 403 is seen stable alongside Motorail stock at Stirling (0900) Monday 15th August 1988 by Colin Brooks, on Flickr

 

https://flic.kr/p/UJdTEn

https://flic.kr/p/9CY6vi

https://flic.kr/p/2oegw8i  (couple of GUV in this train)

 

Steven B

 

 

 

Edited September 2 by Steven B

[montyburns56]

2 hours ago, Steven B said:

It's interesting to see that the camper van loaded on the train has its pop-up roof strapped down! It also looks like you can also see where the train was split for loading with empty car spaces on the third carflat.

 

In 1987 the Euston-Stirling formation was booked as Mk2 BFK, 6x Mk1 FK and 11 Carflat (FGV). One compartment was allocated per car. Class 85 were common on the run along the WCML.

 

The BFK would occasionally be swapped with a Mk1 BSK or BCK; Rail Express Modeller shows the formation with a NSE liveried BSK, one of the pictures below has a blue/grey BCK. Occasionally a Motorail GUV could be found amongst the carflats.

 

Some nice images on Flickr:

Roarin' through Atherstone. by John Whitehouse, on Flickr

 

85004 at Greenholme by mark_jobling, on Flickr

 

37 403 is seen stable alongside Motorail stock at Stirling (0900) Monday 15th August 1988 by Colin Brooks, on Flickr

 

https://flic.kr/p/UJdTEn

https://flic.kr/p/9CY6vi

https://flic.kr/p/2oegw8i  (couple of GUV in this train)

 

Steven B

 

 

 

 

Thanks for those pics and now I know where those Executive MK2 BFKs were used!

[KingEdwardII]

Perhaps with the rise of EVs with relatively limited ranges, there is an opportunity to revive motorail for the 2020s: Offer long distance travel without the hassle and with some on-board charging. London/Scotland, Midlands/Cornwall, etc.

 

Yours, Mike.

[Wickham Green too]

OUCH ! ........... they won't let electric bikes or scooters on board so a full sized car' a definite NO NO !

[black and decker boy]

8 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:

Perhaps with the rise of EVs with relatively limited ranges, there is an opportunity to revive motorail for the 2020s: Offer long distance travel without the hassle and with some on-board charging. London/Scotland, Midlands/Cornwall, etc.

 

Yours, Mike.

EV range and charging points aren’t as bad as the Daily Mail would have you believe and many family sized EVs will happily do Thames Valley to Perth with one recharge (430miles).

 

if you look at the pricing of the Caledonian sleeper then I think a train that has limited capacity to accommodate a motorail segment and seating for occupants would be hideously expensive. Flying and hiring a car probably more likely & economic.

 

(I’ve been in an EV since 2019 and had none of the issues regularly used to criticise them in the press despite doing 1500-2000 miles per month)

[Chris M]

1 hour ago, black and decker boy said:

 

 

(I’ve been in an EV since 2019 and had none of the issues regularly used to criticise them in the press despite doing 1500-2000 miles per month)

You can't deny that the cost of a new EV is very high and for many of them the depreciation is scary. For instance a new Kona EV was about 10k more than a petrol version of the Kona a couple of years back. It is now possible to buy a two year old Kona EV for £15k less than it would have cost two years ago. If the garage asking price has dropped by over 40% in 2 years I hate to think what the trade in figure must have dropped by.  

 

It is almost certain that battery and motor control technology will improve over the next five years and that battery production costs will go down, although to be fair I thought that five years ago and have been proved wrong. Also there are potential developments relating to hydrogen power and other forms of storing power such as a clean burning petrol substitute. I have no idea what will happen but, unfortunately, I can't see a long or medium term need for a new Motorail service due to range issues. I thought Motorail was great and was lucky enough to use it a few times for family holidays when I was a slip of a lad.

 

Mind you, as motorways get to be slower and slower due to weight of traffic and big hold ups due to accidents increase travelling long distance on motorways becomes increasingly painful. Maybe a new Motorail service is becoming more attractive. Cost would almost certainly be a killer though.

[Michael Hodgson]

9 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

OUCH ! ........... they won't let electric bikes or scooters on board so a full sized car' a definite NO NO !

Why not?

 

Eurotunnel is happy to transport EVs

[Phil Parker]

9 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

OUCH ! ........... they won't let electric bikes or scooters on board so a full sized car' a definite NO NO !

 

You are right, electric bikes and scooters aren't allowed inside a passenger train. Too many dodgy batteries catching fire for the railway companies to take the risk.

 

However, electric cars don't catch fire in the same way, and more to the point, aren't going to be loaded inside the coach with the passengers.

[Wickham Green too]

25 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

... However, electric cars don't catch fire in the same way, and more to the point, aren't going to be loaded inside the coach with the passengers.

While the number of electric car fires is about half that of e-bikes and the same as e-scooters the number is significant ( https://qbeeurope.com/news-and-events/press-releases/uk-fire-services-face-46-increase-in-fires-linked-to-lithium-ion-batteries/#:~:text=The data obtained shows fires,as the UK [2]. ). In the - unlikely = event of such a fire breaking out in a car carrier immediately to the rear* of passenger accommodation and the train coming to a halt in a tunnel - again unlikely - the results could be horrendous. Our railways are generally safe but history has shown time and time again that a coming together of unlikely events can lead to disaster.

 

* worse if the cars are ahead